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A Girl in Blue
The year is 1861 in this story. It starts with a girl who lives on a farm near a small village in Michigan in the 1860s. Her father is abusive and wants her to marry an abusive neighbor who had several children. She runs away to Flint, Michigan to stay with an aunt, and then ships out with a regiment to fight in the Civil War as a man. She ends up working in a hospital as a gopher. She fights in the first Bull Run. She shoots a man and ends up falling as...A Ride Into Morning
Fourteen-year-old Mary Cooper is staying with her Aunt Mary Wick and her cousin Tempe Wick on their farm, at the time of the American Revolution. She is staying with them because she is a Patriot, while the other members of her family are Tories, except for her brother Abraham. Twenty-two-year-old Tempe is in charge of the farm because her father has recently died.
The Pennsylvania Line of the Patriots is encamped on the Wick farm, having been giv...An Acquaintance with Darkness
Emily Pigbush's mother is dying from wasting disease& whose symptoms are weakness and coughing up blood. The Civil War has just ended and Washington D.C. is in an uproar. Emily plans to move in next door with her friend Annie Surratt and her family until her Uncle Valentine, a doctor invites her to live with him. Emily is not comfortable with his invitation. Her mother has always disliked him and been suspicious of him. Living with Annie isn't a pe...Hang A Thousand Trees With Ribbons
This book is about Phillis Wheately and how she struggled throughout her life to share her poems and to publish them. But her master (she is a slave) and mistress help Phillis overcome many difficult obstacles like letting people know that just because she is black doesn't mean she can't write poems.
Phillis begins to learn more and more how important freedom is to her and how she doesn't like being a slave. She however, realizes that the master and mis...

Rinaldi booklist

Millicent's Gift
Millicent McCool has known about her magic and her Gift for as long as she can remember. Her father left her family because of it. Her sister died because of the magic. As much as she loves her life, she wonders whether or not she really wants to receive the culmination of her talents, her Gift, on her fourteenth birthday. With this Gift she can make one wish, but only if she is approved for it and if she never tells a lie until after she has used it. Sh...Numbering All the Bones
It is a story about a 13 year old slave who is a daughter of her master. Her master is a weak man emotionally and marries women who are abusive to his slaves and manipulates him into doing their whims. ...Or Give Me Death
Patrick Henry traveled through the American colonies, advocating independence from the British. But at Henry's plantation in Virginia, his family faces a challenge of their own when Sarah, Henry's wife, becomes mentally ill and tries killing her infant son. Knowing her mother is a danger to herself and the family, Sarah's oldest daughter Patsy confines Sarah to the cellar.
As Sarah's mind deteriorates, however, she claims she gains the ability to ...The Cotton Quilt
This is historical fiction that gives an account of the long running feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys in the hills of West Virginia and Kentucky. Seven-year-old Fanny is the youngest daughter of Ranel and Sarah McCoy. She doesn't understand why her family hates the Hatfields and is told the grudge goes back a long way. With a herd of brothers and sisters Fanny realizes that adults can be “plumb” stupid at times.
Fanny gets help from a an...The Journal of Jasper Jonathan Pierce
Jasper Jonathan Pierce is a Pilgrim boy on the Mayflower. He sails to America to escape poverty in England. He does not embrace the religious views of some of the others, but he is respectful of them. He dilligently keeps his journal as a letter to him brother, Tom, left behind in England.
However, things don't go as planned. Sickness, hostile natives, and the approach of winter dampen the morale of all. Two other servants in the colony...The Letter Writer
Harriet befriends a gentle and intelligent slave named Nat Turner and inadvertently gives him the tools he needs to start a bloody uprising of slaves across the Southampton countryside. Harriet is a bastard child of the Whitehead family who just wants to be accepted by her half siblings. Mr. Whitehead, the head of the family, was killed while out at sea and Harriet came under the guardianship of his wife. Harriet now writes letters for her foster mother...

Ann Rinaldi list of books

Time Enough for Drums
Jemima was a feisty, selfish spoiled girl, but time and a chain of events change her forever. Despite their stout patriotic beliefs, her parents have insisted that Jem be tutored by their friend, John Reid, well known to be a Tory! Jem does everything she can to vex him, she believes she hates him and he treats her unfairly and meanly. But when a shocking truth reveals itself about this hateful man, can those feelings change? as Jem's brothers go off to ...Wolf by the Ears
Harriet is fair-skinned enough that she is given the chance to pass as a white woman and become a integrated into white society, during a period in history where even freed slaves struggle against oppression. Harriet Hemings is a black servant of the famous Thomas Jefferson who is content living a fairly idyllic life on her master's estate in the town of Monticello, Virginia. It is 1820 and she is 19 years old. Unlike many black servants of the time, her...